۱- Introduction

۲- Literature review

۳- Methodology

۴- Results

۵- Discussion and conclusions

۶- Implications and limitations

References

Abstract

Despite its global popularity, the Web-based Peer-to-Peer (P2P) accommodation platform (e.g. Airbnb, Xiaozhu.com) commonly suffers insufficient customer trust due to its lean human/social elements. This study examines a soft strategy of trust establishment that addresses the impersonal nature of Web-mediation by improving social presence, and assesses its applicability and functional mechanism in the context of P2P sharing economy. Specifically, this study models and tests a social presence-utilitarian/hedonic engagement-trust-purchase intention framework. Data was collected from 571 Chinese P2P accommodation customers, and analyzed using structural equation model. The result confirms that social presence does enhance P2P customer trust and purchase intention via both utilitarian and hedonic engagement. Implications and limitations are also discussed.

Introduction

Boosted by computer-mediated-communication (CMC) technology, the sharing economy has gained its global momentum of development (Pizam, 2014). Hospitality industry is one of its pioneering sectors, and is characterized by explosive growth of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) accommodation platforms (e.g. Airbnb). Despite being a new entrant into the market, the P2P accommodation has become a strong competitor to conventional hotels. By 2018, Airbnb has been offering accommodation in more than 81,000 cities around the globe, with over 5 million rooms in its inventory, which is larger than any branded chain hotels (Airbnb.com, 2018). In China, the total revenue of online P2P accommodation rentals grew by a factor of ten thousand to CNY4.05 billion (approximately US$608 million) between 2009 and 2014 (Zhu and Guo, 2016). Leading local P2P platforms such as Xiaozhu.com and Tujia.com are so popular in finance market that they have attracted billions of dollars of investment in recent years (Tujia, 2016; Xiaozhu, 2016). By this momentum of development, scholars envision that P2P accommodation will continue to reshape the future dynamics of the hospitality industry (Guttentag, 2015). Rapidly as it grows, most P2P accommodation platforms are suffering scanty trust, which has largely impeded the participation of many potential customers (Ert et al., 2016; Wu et al., 2017). Tussyadiah and Pesonen’s (2018) empirical study confirms that trust has been the “most cited barrier to sharing economy such as P2P accommodation, which includes the basic mistrust among strangers and concerns for privacy” (p.5). In its nature, the P2P accommodation is a Web-mediated transaction of excess property capacity between individuals. Therefore, it bears the stigmas including: information asymmetry inherent in Webbased marketplaces, and exaggerated by the intangible and inseparable nature of accommodation service (Hong and Cho, 2011); and decreased presence of human and social elements due to the impersonal, anonymous and automated nature of Web (Hassanein and Head, 2007). Offsetting these two stigmas is the pre-requisite of establishing trust and encouraging customer participation in the P2P accommodation. Conventional trust-establishing strategies mostly aim at addressing information asymmetry problem by increased disclosure of critical information, e.g. peer online reviews, verified product information (Jøsang et al., 2007). Such practices can be regarded as “hard” strategy, as they are pronounced and straightforward, and enable customers to learn details of the product so as to reduce uncertainties and suspicions. Despite their popularity in regular e-commerce, such strategy faces significant celling effect in the context of accommodation. This is because accommodation service and its delivery process are dynamic, intertwined with consumption process, and vulnerable to various factors. Thus, service actually experienced tend to be different from those described either by peer customer or by the service provider (Zekanovic-Korona and Grzunov, 2014).